Public school teacher attrition and organizational health: a comparative study
Abstract
The country will need to hire over 2 million additional teachers over the next decade.
One major cause of the current teacher shortage seems to be teacher attrition. Beyond
retirement and relocation, teachers leave for many reasons. This study explored how
teachers from a large central Texas school district who had left their positions
perceived a school climate variable labeled organizational health and how this
variable might relate to teacher attrition. The Organizational Health Inventory (OHI)
(Hoy & Tartar, 1997a, 1997b) was used to measure these perceptions of elementary,
middle, and secondary school teachers. A demographic questionnaire was also sent to
each of the teachers. The overall OHI results were standardized and compared to the
appropriate OHI normative sample. The results were also disaggregated by teacher
demographics, characteristics and compared to the normative sample. The
Organizational Health perceptions of elementary, middle and secondary school
teachers, in aggregate, were average or above when compared to the normative mean.
However, when disaggregated, areas of poor organizational health were noted.
Elementary school teachers viewed Academic Emphasis as very low, middle school
teachers rated Teacher Affiliation and Collegial Leadership below the normative
mean, and the secondary school OHI results suggested their schools’ Institutional
Integrity was lacking. To address Academic Emphasis at elementary schools, it was
suggested that leadership review induction/mentoring programs to determine why
special educators who participated in these programs rated Academic Emphasis
higher than general educators. At middle school, leadership should examine
mentoring with emphasis on timely feedback and analysis focused on programs that
encourage specific collaboration between young and older teachers. To correct
unhealthy perceptions of Collegial Leadership, Leadership should develop
mechanisms that sense and address concerns and needs of their special education
staff, especially young teachers. To address Institutional Integrity at secondary
schools, leadership should develop programs for new/inexperienced teachers to
provide exposure and experience in dealing with outside groups (e.g., parents and
organizations such as cheerleading, band, athletics, etc.).
Department
Description
text